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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/1/2022 7:53 AM,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:luis.chaparro@web.de">luis.chaparro@web.de</a> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-e028b622-8d4e-4898-badb-2dacf64fffae-1646139183610@3c-app-webde-bs27">I
wasn't trying to ask if a certain perfect tense maps to the
Klingon perfective aspect, I was actually trying (that's at least
what I think) to ask the opposite: I was trying to think about
aspect without hanging it to a specific tense. My question was why
*wa'leS rep wa'maH loS jISoppu'* must necessarily fit the English
Future Perfect, and why we couldn't give it another
interpretation, *even though* there is no English tense to express
it:</blockquote>
<p>The key here is not to try to understand it in terms of fitting
or not fitting English tenses. What you need to do is understand
what the Klingon elements <i>mean,</i> not how they translate.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-e028b622-8d4e-4898-badb-2dacf64fffae-1646139183610@3c-app-webde-bs27">
instead of forcing it to a perfect interpretation in which the
eating will be completed before 2 pm (*Tomorrow at 2 pm I will
have eaten*), why couldn't we give it, depending on the situation,
a perfective but not perfect interpretation similar to *Yesterday
I ate at 2 pm*, but in the future, where the eating happens at 2
pm and is considered as a completed whole?</blockquote>
<p>English does not have any special markers for perfective
concepts, so it doesn't matter what verb tense you use.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-e028b622-8d4e-4898-badb-2dacf64fffae-1646139183610@3c-app-webde-bs27">
In the past you can chose to translate *jISoppu'* with a perfect
tense (e.g
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap=""> . *I had eaten*) or with a non perfect tense (*I ate*), depending on the situation. Why should we interpret *jISoppu'* in the future always as perfect?</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Because Klingon perfective includes the concept of being
completed, and to express something as completed, you have to be
looking at it from after it is completed.</p>
<p>In English, we can use the simple past tense to look backward at
an action. We are looking at that action from a vantage point
where its completion can be perceived. If we use the simple future
to look forward to an action, we can only perceive the beginning
of the action. <i>I will eat</i> does not imply completion. In
order to take a vantage point that lets us see the future action
as completed, we have to go even farther into the future, to a
point where the action is finished. We can then look backward at
it to see its completion. This kind of expression has a name:
future perfect.</p>
<p>That's why I can't give you a future perfective that isn't
perfect in English.<br>
</p>
<p>Again, this is just the way English works. It's more important
here that you try to understand the way that <i>Klingon</i>
works, and to do that you need to analyze and understand the
Klingon elements involved <i>regardless</i> of how they're
translated into English or Spanish.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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